Stretch your Stamps with Beans and Greens!

The Kansas City area, specifically Clay County, is seeing an increase in the number of people in poverty. These people in poverty participate in SNAP to help purchase food goods. The Beans and Greens program “creates benefits that extend to lower income shoppers, local farmers, local farmers’ markets and the larger community.” For example, the SNAP recipients gain access to vegetables and fruits, the local farmers gain new customers, the local farmer’s markets gain more payment options and the local community gains improved public health and economic vitality (Beans&Greens, 2013). Basically it’s a win-win for everyone.

The ultimate goal of Beans and Greens is to “encourage shoppers utilizing the matching program to enhance their diets with local produce by making healthy local produce both more accessible and affordable.” (Beans&Greens, 2013). In 2012, the program has grown to have three markets participate, two of which allow the SNAP recipients to double their money, up to twenty-five dollars. The biggest problem is increasing the awareness of these benefits. According to the Clay County Nutritional Assessment in 2011, only 71.6% of income eligible residents partake in the SNAP program but only seven and a half percent utilize it. Despite this, the number of SNAP authorized stores increased from 95 in 2008 to 110 in 2009 confirming that the participants are just not aware of their benefits. So how do we address this?

One of the potential factors is the impact of food deserts. The CDC recognizes that people living in food insecure environments consume fewer vegetables and fruits. The Beans and Greens program is seeking to resolve this by bringing farmer’s markets to these areas. With both mobile and stationary markets, even the most underserved areas can benefit.

Another potential factor is the lack of awareness. This is where the Clay County Health Center comes in. They are working together with Beans and Greens to increase the awareness of this initiative and improve the consumption of fruits and vegetables of SNAP and WIC participants. While their target audience is mainly these participants, everyone can benefit from this program. As mentioned earlier, increasing the number of farmer’s markets as well as adding new forms of payment for those in need, serves the community as a whole.